American Airlines, US Airways and the Creation of the World's Largest Airline

The 2013 merger of American Airlines and US Airways marked a major step in the consolidation of the U.S. airline industry. A young management team that began plotting mergers a decade earlier designed a brilliant strategy to seize an industry prize. In doing so, it enlisted the help of unions who engineered one of the labor movement's biggest corporate victories. The airlines' histories and the inside story of the takeover is told by two veteran airline reporters.

Table of Contents

Preface by Ted Reed 1
Introduction 3
1. Uncle Ed Builds an Airline 5
2. Call Me Butch 16
3. Teaching an Eagle to Fly 26
4. Al Casey's Five Big Decisions 38
5. Our Son of a Bitch 48
6. How Bob Crandall Changed the Airline Industry 56
7. America West: The Little Airline That Could 63
8. The House That Jerry Built 73
9. How Stephen Wolf Almost Fixed US Airways 84
10. Plan B as in Bankruptcy 95
11. America West Looks East 104
12. The Delta Debacle 113
13. The War Between East and West 121
14. A Tough Act to Follow 131
15. A Moral Man Loses a Battle 141
16. Labor Takes the Lead 152
17. Let's Meet for Dinner 162
18. Hey, What About Us? 171
19. Breaking Down the Doors 179
Chapter Notes 189
Bibliography 197
Index 199